Mission JournalThe Midnight Hour
The Midnight Hour
Location: Catalina Island
Site: The Midnight Hour
Boat: Giant Stride
Net Retrieval: Jim Babor, Jeremy Jodoin, Andrew Hung, Juan Torres
Documentation: Jung Hsieh
Surface Support: Katie P., Jennifer Overby
Mission Impact: Approximately 300 pounds of net (roughly 600 square feet) removed from the Midnight Hour.
Team Ghost Diving USA headed back out aboard the Giant Stride to the Midnight Hour, the sunken squid boat off Catalina that has been the focus of our work this year. The target this time was a stretch of net that had drifted off the drum and settled into the wreck itself, wrapping around the structure and spilling onto the sand alongside.
Two cutting teams went to work on different parts of the wreck. Juan and Andrew took on a section caught underneath the bow, working it free and lifting a large portion of it off the hull. Jim and Jeremy found a lot of net attached to the midship mast and removed a sizable section that draped over the mast, across the wreck, and down into the sand beside the keel. Jung dove with the bow team, documenting the work as it happened.
Net wrapped around the midship mast. 
Cutting a hanging section free.
As always, every section was checked for entangled marine life before it was cut. The wreck is home to a healthy population of fish, and more than a few of them hung around to watch the net come off.
A resident checks out the net before it goes. 
The school that calls the Midnight Hour home.
With wind and current building through the dive, the teams sent up surface marker buoys and completed their decompression on the drift. Katie and Jennifer tracked the buoys from the Giant Stride and, as the divers worked through their shallow stops, swam out to meet them and guide them back to the boat. Good surface support is what makes a day like this work, and they delivered.
Rigging a lift bag to a bundled section. 
Bag on, ready to go.
When the day was tallied, the team had raised roughly 600 square feet of net weighing about 300 pounds, much of that weight in the leaded rope that had been holding it down against the wreck. That is 300 pounds of net that can no longer entangle marine life on the Midnight Hour.
There is more net on the wreck, and we will be back for it.
A very special thank you to Captain Jim and the crew of the Giant Stride, and to our partners at Healthy Seas and Hyundai USA for supporting our clean-up efforts.
